Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-05-30
Ri,SSIA'S TAX ON EGGS.
yow and Novel Scheme to Raise
tbe Wind-The Museovite Min
istry of Finances
Thinks it Ras Devised Plan WHEREBY
IN. Imperial Treasury VIII De
Filled.
London Telegraph.

,a recommended to take example by
.r+rsordinary and unprecedented tax
.--b;ch i soon to be levied in the Russian
,nire Fiscal inventiveness must have
-..cbad very low level when it is seri-
arsrv proposed to put tax on eggs Yet,
.aoo-ding to our Berlin correspondent, this
,,oers to be the expedient VIII ich COM
-iands itself to the Muscovite ministry OF
4rsnces as the best available plan for fill
mo depleted exchequer with any
II'n,ber of kopecks and rubles. The
L..ram to be adopted is that every hens
- which is laid is to be taxed a
7a-,ar kopeck, q sum about equal in
English money to q third part of a
,a1nv. but that only the 'ftirst twenty
Pp1Tsi, are to be liable to taxation. It is
SS779avybst strangely added that this
oo-rse is adopted in order to "further the
5Teadjng of poultry" To lay a duty on
los Is rather a Hioernian method of IN
l,ciug people to go in on an extensive
sco,e for poultry farming. The hen, how
ovar. is an intelligent animal up to 3 GER
tain noint, and, no doubt, when it hears Of
no new tax it will be stimulated TO lay
sgga as fast as it can, so as to get beyond
45s taxable twenty. The cackling which
Will ensue in farmyard when any GALL
rsreauS mother reaches its twenty first
3pnosIt will be tremendous. And the sys-
+em has the distinct advantage inst it will
induce hens to learn to count correctly.
hitherto this branch of their education
las been much neglected. No school
ros-d has thought it worth while TO go
al. Into the fields and commons and
f,wl-7uus and compel the feathered deni-
rpns TO come in and be taught. In Rus
lis. however, all this VIII now be changed.
Hens which can count up to twenty will
he far more valuable than hens which
nave not reached that exalted pitch of
mental precocity. The former will be
s.f registering machines for counting
,5eir own eggs; the latter
will be compelled to carry
mut.ulcation tables and "ready
rsckoners" s0out with them, and will get
their owners into trouble with the tax
collector by giving wrong totals of their
prOduct-saying they have laid thlrty-siX
eggs, for example, when as g matter OF
fact they have only reached twenty nine.
The motto for farmyard in future will
De every hen its own cOlenSO." We
csu Oulg fsintly imagine the state OF in
te.lsclusl complication which stupid,
uncducsted, unmsthematical hens will
get into over the tale OF the
eggs they have laid. Putting aside
the TACT that they will naturally feel
prompted to get up to the magic
laziree total Of twenty as quickly as
possible, aud that this will lead to story
telling and to 3 distinct lowering of the
moral standard now happily prevalent ii
vel conducted farmysrds, we must also
bear in mind that hens are not all of them
senior WTanglers by nature, and that the
Csll'O their reasoning facilities which
is about TO be made in Russia is thing
80 which they have never had TO
su0mit before. When they are past
Inc first fifteen, and are getting
up to twenty, they may very likely
close count" and then we shall see
distracted hens retiring behind haystacks
70 Try to puzzle out the problem, and do
ing long and complicated and quite un-
necessary sums of addition and subtrac-
ton and multiplication in their own
heads. 'If to-day is July /, and began
ayDg eggs on May l, and lay two or
three q Week'-so the sum will run
"whst is the present number Of eggs
which have laid this season." And The
answer will, as likely as not, come out in
pence At which neither the farmer
Tor the taX-gatherer will be pleased.
There is method in the madness of
the Mascovite finance ministry, for the
exact number of hens in the Russian
empire has been estimated as q prelimi-
Iary 10 the Imposition of the novel tax.
There are said to be 100, 900, 900 festhered
eggIsyers of the farmyard in that mighty
territory, each of which is computed to
lay on an average twenty eggs per annum.
K IS, therefore, not very generous to
allow hens after their twentieth egg to 60
iTte II, as a rule, they stop short st that
quantity. The twenty eggs, at quarter
Of kopeck apiece, laid by these
I-l,000,000 hens, are calculated
70 produce e revenue OF 100000 rubles,
and nobody can pretend that Russian
finance is in a condition to despise an adj
ditiOn of that substantial kind, from
Whatever source it may be derived. Ducks
EJe 10 count the same as hens, but tur-
|keys lay such large eggs that it is con-
sltered q very debatable point whether
tley shall be taxed at q larger figure than
their smaller feRthered relatives. Over
this subject the finance ministry Is now
puzzled; all the heads of depart
menJS and financial officials at st.
Petersburg and Moscow are consult
iDg together, and when the result of their
celebrations is made known there will
Dc woe in the hearts of farmers and cot
tagerS from the White sea to the Cauca-
s1S. The ducks eggs are estimated to
sdd another two or three million ruDles,
and the whole sum 10 be raised out of the
lanyard generally will, it is ssuguinely
hoped, amount to the grand total of 49,,
100000 rubles. Even if this financial law
comes into effect in Russia, which is
still very doubtful, we do
not anticipate that Mr.. Goschen will
feel disposed TO initiate il. The outcry
rom the agricultural community would
De too overpowering, and tinanciers still
wildly remember Lord Sherbrooke's IN
happy fate over the match tax, which he
!2-rodUced so jauntily and was obliged
10 withdraw so promptly. As to taxing
L2glish eggs, the mere attempt to do
anything of the sort would almost raise @
low revolution. The free-born British
len is very different sort of bird from
he rooster who hss grown up under the
-Zsr's despUtic rule; and the British
osrR-d door fowl might be depended upon
% stand no nonsense, and to assert Its
light to produce eggs against any chan
CelOr of the exchequer that ever breathed.